“I Love to Read Month was celebrated at the elementary. Our students do volumes of reading throughout the school year, but this is a fun way to celebrate and reward them for all their hard work,” explained Chatfield Elementary School’s reading specialist, Elissa Johnsrud. “The challenge was 100 steps, or 25 hours of reading. It was a big goal, but our students did a great job rising to the challenge. If they made 100 steps, they got to tape Mr. Ihrke to the wall with a piece of duct tape.

A rural Spring Valley family spent a weekend at the end of January assisting with showing draft horses at the National Western Stock Show, where teams of powerful draft horses are hitched to massive wagons and judged on how they pull and are driven.

The Mabel-Canton School Board accepted a large donation from the Mabel Business Association, approved a revised budget for the current year and discussed the creation of a School Board Finance Committee at its regular meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 17.

“Mine is that I’m just a doer…I get it done,” said Fillmore County District 1 commissioner write-in candidate Mitch Lentz, speaking to a gathering at the Spring Valley Public Library this past Thursday evening about what is his working style and how he addresses problems with which he must deal.

For many years, bullying has been a source of conversation and advocacy for school students and adults. Sadly, most every school has bullies and many times young people don’t know how to react to someone hurting another person.

The Chatfield wrestlers are done for 2014-15, and along with the close of the current season they brought home some individual medals from the Minnesota State Tournament held this past weekend in St. Paul.

During the regular season the Lady Knights split with Wabasha-Kellogg, winning at W-K, 52-30, and losing at home, 56-52. The gals were hoping to win “the rubber match” in the 1A East Sub-section tournament, but couldn’t pull it out, losing to the Falcons, 54-44.

Jacob Rindels had 34 points, and topped the 1000 point mark, leading the Knights (#3) to an 80-77 win in the 1A East Sub-section tournament game over Spring Grove (#2). Rindels connected on 12 of 21 shots from the field, including 2/5 from three-point range, and eight of 12 shots at the free throw line in the season, and career high performance. He also added 12 rebounds in the contest, giving him his third double-double of the season (others were against St. Charles and Southland).

When Kevin Slimp stepped outside the door of the community room at F & M Community Bank in Preston Friday after a seven-hour session with staff members of Bluff Country Newspaper Group, he said, “It really doesn’t feel that cold here.” This statement is from a resident of Knoxville, Tennessee, who first ventured out that morning in a temperature of 16 below zero.

A great-horned owl flew overhead in a whisper. The sight thrilled my eyes, but was of no more use to my ears than the silent hop of a songbird under my bird feeders. Crows followed after it. There was no whispering done by the crows. They had found the daytime roosting spot of the owl. They chased it from that location with obvious outrage and delight. The great horned owl likely had a nest nearby.

Vina Lund, an Ostrander resident who just celebrated her 105th birthday, was asked by a reporter during her birthday party to confirm a story her son told about her dancing with the notorious outlaw, Babyface Nelson, at the Sheep Shed in Wykoff.

“It’s exciting! Imagine what we could do with this kind of money,” Spring Valley Area Food Shelf board member Kathy Baarsch said of being one of nearly 100 non-profit organizations to participate in the Otto Bremer Foundation’s March Millions for Southeastern Minnesota.